ar, when Vane
came within gun-shot of him, he fired a broadside at his old friend, and
so took his leave.

Yeates came into North Eddisto river, about ten leagues to the southward
of Charleston, and sent an express to the governor, to know if he and
his comrades might have the benefit of his majesty's pardon; promising
that, if they might, they would surrender themselves to his mercy, with
the sloops and negroes. Their request being granted, they all came up,
and received certificates; and Captain Thompson, from whom the negroes
were taken, had them all restored to him, for the use of his owners.

Vane cruised some time off the bar, in hopes to catch Yeates at his
coming out again, but therein he was disappointed; however, he there
took two ships from Charleston, which were bound home to England. It
happened just at this time, that two sloops well manned and armed, were
equipped to go after a pirate, which the governor of South Carolina was
informed lay then in Cape Fear river cleaning: but Colonel Rhet, who
commanded the sloops, meeting with one of the ships that Vane had
plundered, going back over the bar for such necessaries as had been
taken from her, and she giving the Colonel an account of being taken by
the pirate Vane, and also, that some of her men, while they were
prisoners on board of him, had heard the pirates say they should clean
in one of the rivers to the southward, he altered his first design, and
instead of standing to the northward, in pursuit of the pirate in Cape
Fear river, turned to the southward after Vane, who had ordered such
reports to be given out, on purpose to put any force that should come
after him upon a wrong scent; for he stood away to the northward, so
that the pursuit proved to be of no effect. Colonel Rhet's speaking with
this ship was the most unlucky thing that could have happened, because
it turned him out of the road which, in all probability, would have
brought him into the company of Vane, as well as of the pirate he went
after, and so they might have been both destroyed; whereas, by the
Colonel's going a different way, he not only lost the opportunity of
meeting with one, but if the other had not been infatuated, and lain six
weeks together at Cape Fear, he would have missed him likewise; however,
the Colonel having searched the rivers and inlets, as directed, for
several days without success, at length sailed in prosecution of his
first design, and met with the pirate accor